Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague.
The question before us, in terms of updating and signing onto the Marrakesh treaty, is also a question of where we need to go in terms of copyright. When we develop a copyright legislation framework in a rapidly changing technological environment, the laws that we put down one year can be superseded just by changes in the technology around us. Therefore, we have to have fundamental principles.
Works that are being made available should not be made available if it is interfering with someone's commercial right who would normally make them available, but also, we need principles around the provision to access works that would normally be considered under “fair use” provisions and the issue of the technological protection measures that are given in our copyright legislation the highest protection, superseding at times the rights of researchers, sometimes innovators, and certainly, the libraries. If something is under digital lock, they are not able to break it so that they can do a backup so it can be utilized in another format.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague, given the fact that we recognized, through this treaty, that there should be a right for those to make works accessible to those with visual impairments, if we have to then consider some of the nuances of copyright overall so that other good public uses of copyright, in terms of making things accessible, have to be considered, particularly for those with other disabilities, perceptual disabilities, for example, or hearing impairment, and also in terms of whether it is applicable for research and in terms of being able to save works that are under digital lock provisions.